OK, my pc I got a while back is a slimline. Well I wanna change it to a full desktop pc... how do I do this? Cant I just get a new case thats bigger?

Also, my full hard drive isnt showing up its showing 270gb. I looked at the partitions i think i have a partition out thats 27 gigs or so... how do i delete it and get my full hd back?

Some PCs use proprietary parts instead of standard parts, and thus may not transfer or fit into other cases. You would need to find out if your PC uses standard parts that will fit into a standard case, or if they will fit into a full desktop case made by the same manufacturer.

Your system doesn't show the total hard drive capacity, only the useable capacity. You can see exactly what you have and how your hard drive is partitioned by the following path:

Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Storage>Disk Management

This will show you how each hard drive on your system is partitioned, the usable space on each partition, and the amount of free space on each partition and the % of free space on each partition. It does not show the total size of your hard drive. For example, I have two 500GB hard drives, but the system only shows they each have 465GB of usable space. The other 35GB is not lost, it is reserved space for boot sectors and boot records, but that space is not reported.

You may also have a hidden recovery partition put on there by the manufacturer. If you do, you can see it in the path provided above, but you won't be aware of it otherwise. It usually takes up a little over 6GB.

One point of interest: since you can see how hard drives are partitioned in Disk Management, and can see the % of available free space for each partition, it is advisable to check this occasionally, because if your free space becomes less than 15% in any partition, you won't be able to defrag that partition, or the disk drive if you have only one partition. Defrag requires at least 15% free space to operate.

This is what I see.

I did a duel boot of windows 7, which I later deleted and made it my main operating system, which since, I have went back to my defualt os, vista home premium which had came with my computer. I partitioned that off I think, and can't get it back. Atleast I think I did it.

You could create a new NTFS partition for the unallocated space and use that as a backup for your most important data files (you can create the partition from Disk Management).

If you want one large C partition, a program like Norton's Partition Magic will allow you to resize the C partition without destroying your data or operating system, but if you go this route, be sure you back up all of your important files that you don't want to lose before you try it. I don't believe Partition Magic works with Vista or Windows 7, and Partition Magic isn't free. But, here is a free utility that appears to do what Partition Magic does:

http://www.partition-tool.com/easeus-partition-manager/help/resizing-and-moving-partition.htm

Read about it carefully before you use it, should you decide to download and try it.

Quite frankly, the unallocated space is typical of the size that your C drive should be with your operating system and applications, and the allocated space (270GB) is typical of where you would put your data files. It is odd that you have this strange configuration with the 27GB unallocated.

If it were me, and I had another computer to work with, I'd backup any data files I wanted somewhere, like on an external HD or another computer, start over, delete the existing C partition, reallocate it to 20 - 30GB for the OS and Applications, install them there, and create the large partition for my data files. As a matter of practice, I keep my data files separate from the OS and applications in a large partition, because it's your data files that will increase and use up your HD space. Also, if I should ever get a virus or other malware on the C drive, the other partition is insulated from the problem and my data files remain uncorrupted.

Ok, so I used that tool to make it all one partition tool and made it all one partition. I looked on the pc box and my hd is 320 gigs, this is whats showing

Device Manager will show you how each hard drive on your system is partitioned, the usable space on each partition, and the amount of free space on each partition and the % of free space on each partition. It does not show the total size of your hard drive. For example, I have two 500GB hard drives, but Device Manager only shows they each have 465GB of usable space. The other 35GB is not lost, it is reserved space for boot sectors and boot records, but that space is not reported by Device Manager or any other utility that I know of. They all only report the usable space.

OHH ok im sorry I misread your post. So the other 22gigs arent usable?

That's correct. That's where your HD boot sectors, partition table and master boot record are reserved. You cannot access this part of the Hard Drive except through special utilities that can check them and determine if they are corrupt and try to fix them, like the checkdisk utility or the recovery console that comes with your Windows CD, and other, available utilities created for this purpose that can be found on the internet.

Ohh, ok thank you.